Observations concerning the increase of mankind, peopling of countries, &c

OBSERVATIONS

CONCERNING THE INCREASE

OF

MANKIND, PEOPLING OF
COUNTRIES, &c.

By Benjamin Franklin
BOSTON:

Printed and Sold by S. K N E E L A N D in Queen-
Street, i 7 5 5.

TARRQTOWN. NEW YORK

BEFBINTED

WILLIAM ABBATT
IMS

Being Extra Numbtr BS of Tarn Muim* OF HUTOBI WITH NOTM *o QOMII

OBSERVATIONS concerning the Increase of Mankind,
Peopling of Countries, &c.

TABLES of the proportion of Marriages to Births, of Deaths
to Births, of Marriages to the numbers of inhabitants, &c.
form d on observations made upon the Bills of Mortality,
Christenings, &c. of populous cities, will not suit countries; nor
will tables form d on observations made on full settled old countries
as Europe, suit new countries, as America.

2. For people increase in proportion to the number of mar
riages, and that is greater in proportion to the ease and convenience
of supporting a family. When families can be easily supported,
more persons marry, and earlier in life.

3. In cities, where all trades, occupations and offices are full,
many delay marrying, till they can see how to bear the charges of
a family; which charges are greater in cities, as Luxury is more com
mon : many live single during life, and continue servants to families,
journeymen to Trades, &c. hence cities do not by natural generation
supply themselves with inhabitants; the deaths are more than the
births.

4. In countries full settled, the case must be nearly the same;
all Lands being occupied and improved to the heigh th ; those who
cannot get land must labour for others that have it; when labourers
are plenty their wages will be low; by low wages a family is sup
ported with difficulty; this difficulty deters many from marriage,
who therefore long continue servants and single. Only as the Cit
ies take supplies of people from the country, and thereby make a
little more room in the country, Marriage is a little more incourag d
there, and the births exceed the deaths.

5. Europe is generally full settled with husbandmen, manu
facturers, &c. and therefore cannot now much increase in People:
America is chiefly occupied by Indians, who subsist mostly by hunt-

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4 OBSERVATIONS CONCERNING THE

ing. But as the hunter, of all men, requires the greatest quantity
of land from whence to draw his subsistence, (the husbandman
subsisting on much less, the gardener on still less, and the manu
facturer requiring least of all), the Europeans found America as
fully settled as it well could be by hunters; yet these having large
Tracts, were easily prevailed on to part with portions of territory
to the new comers, who did not much interfere with the natives
in hunting, and furnish d them with many things they wanted.

6. Land being thus plenty in America, and so cheap as that
a labouring man that understands Husbandry, can in a short time
save money enough to purchase a piece of new Land sufficient for
a plantation, whereon he may subsist a family; such are not afraid
to marry ; for if they even look far enough forward to consider how
their children when grown up are to be provided for, they see that
more Land is to be had at rates equally easy, all circumstances
considered.

7. Hence Marriages in America are more general, and more
generally early, than in Europe. And if it is reckoned there, that
there is but one marriage per annum among one hundred persons,
perhaps we may here reckon two; and if in Europe they have but
four Births to a marriage(many of their marriages being late) we
may here reckon eight, of which if one half grow up, and our mar
riages are made, reckoning one with another at twenty years of age
our people must at least be doubled every twenty years.

8. But not withstanding this increase, so vast is the Territory
of North America, that it will require many ages to settle it fully;
and till it is fully settled, labour will never be cheap here, where
no man continues long a labourer for others, but gets a Plantation
of his own, no man continues long a journeyman to a trade, but
goes among those new settlers and sets up for himself, &c. Hence
labour is no cheaper now in Pennsylvania, than it was thirty years
ago, tho so many thousand labouring people have been imported.

9. The danger therefore of these Colonies interfering with

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INCREASE OF MANKIND 5

their Mother Country in trades that depend on labour, Manu
factures, &c. is too remote to require the attention of Great Britain.

10 But in proportion to the increase of the Colonies a vast
demand is growing for British Manufactures, a glorious market
wholly in the power of Britain, in which foreigners cannot interfere,
which will increase in a short time even beyond her power of sup
plying, tho her whole trade should be to her Colonies: Therefore
Britain should not too much restrain Manufactures in her Colonies.
A wise and good mother will not do it. To distress is to weaken,
and weakening the children weakens the whole family.

11. Besides if the manufactures of Britain (by reason of the
American Demands) should rise too high in price, foreigners who
can sell cheaper will drive her merchants out of foreign markets;
foreign manufactures will thereby be encouraged and increased,
and consequently foreign nations, perhaps her rivals in power, grow
more populous and more powerful; while her own Colonies, kept
too low, are unable to assist her or add to her strength.

12. Tis an ill-grounded opinion that by the labour of slaves,
America may possibly vie in cheapness of manufactures with Britain.
The labour of slaves can never be so cheap here as the labour of
working men is in Britain. Any one may compute it. Interest
of money is in the Colonies from six to ten per Cent. Slaves one
with another cost thirty . Sterling per head. Reckon then the
interest of the first purchase of a slave, the Insurance or risque on
his life, his cloathing and diet, expenses in his sickness and loss of
time, loss by his neglect of business. (Neglect is natural to the
man who is not to be benefited by his own care or diligence), Ex-
pence of a Driver to keep him at work, and his pilfering from time
to time, almost every slave being by Nature a thief, and compare
the whole amount with the wages of a manufacturer of iron or wool
in England, you will see that labour is much cheaper there than it
ever can be by negroes here. Why then will Americans purchase
slaves? Because slaves may be kept as long as a man pleases, or

6 OBSERVATIONS CONCERNING THE

has occasion for their labour; while hired men are continually leav
ing their master (often in the midst of his business,) and setting
up for themselves. . 8.

13. As the increase of people depends on the encouragement
of marriages, the following things must diminish a Nation, viz.
1. The being conquered; for the conquerors will engross as many
offices, and exact as much tribute or profit on the labour of the con
quered, as will maintain them in their new establishment, and this
diminishing the subsistence of the natives discourages their mar
riages, and so gradually diminishes them, while the foreigners in
crease. 2. Loss of Territory. Thus the Britons being driven
into Wales, and crowded together in a barren country insufficient
to support such great numbers, diminished till the people bore a
proportion to the produce, while the Saxons increased on their
abandoned lands; till the Island became full of English. And were
the English now driven into Wales by some foreign nation, there
would in a few years be no more Englishmen in Britain than there
are now people in Wales. 3. Loss of Trade. Manufactures
exported draw subsistence from foreign countries for numbers, who
are thereby enabled to marry and raise families. If the nation be
deprived of any branch of trade, and no new employment is found
for the people occupy d in that branch, it will also be soon deprived
of so many People. 4. Loss of Food. Suppose a nation has a
Fishery, which not only employs great numbers, but makes the
food and subsistence of the people cheaper. If another nation be
comes Master of the Seas, and prevents the Fishery, the people
will diminish in proportion as the loss of employ, and dearness of
provision makes it more difficult to subsist a family. 5. Bad
Government and insecure property. People not only leave such
a country, and settling abroad incorporate with other nations, lose
their native Languages, and become foreigners; but the industry
of those that remain being discourag d, the quantity of subsistence
in the country is lessen d, and the support of a family becomes more
difficult. So heavy taxes tend to diminish a People. 6. The

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INCREASE OF MANKIND 7

Introduction of slaves. The negroes brought into the English
Sugar Islands have greatly diminished the whites there; the poor
are by this means depriv d of employment, while a few families
acquire vast Estates, which they spend on foreign luxuries, and
educating their children in the habit of those luxuries, the same
Income is needed for the support of one that might have maintain d
one hundred. The Whites who have slaves, not labouring, are
enfeebled, and therefore not so generally prolific; the slaves being
work d too hard, and ill fed, their constitutions are broken, and the
deaths among them are more than the births; so that a continual
supply is needed from Africa. The Northern Colonies having few
slaves increase in Whites. Slaves also pejorate* the Families that
use them; the white children become proud, disgusted with labour,
and being educated in idleness, are rendered unfit to get a Living
by industry.

14. Hence the Prince that acquires new territory, if he finds
it vacant, or removes the natives to give his own people room; the
Legislator that makes effectual laws for promoting of trade, in
creasing Employment, improving land by more or better Tillage;
providing more food by Fisheries; securing property, &c. and the
man that invents new trades, arts or manufactures, or new im-
provments in husbandry, may be properly called Fathers of their
Nation, as they are the cause of the generation of multitudes, by
the encouragement they afford to marriage.

15. As to Privileges granted to the married, (such as the Jus
trium Liberorum among the Romans), they may hasten the filling of
a country that has been thinned by war or pestilence, or that has
otherwise vacant territory; but cannot increase a people beyond
the means provided for their subsistence.

16. Foreign luxuries and needless manufactures imported
and used in a nation, do, by the same reasoning, increase the people
of the nation that furnishes them, and diminish the people of the
nation that uses them. Laws therefore that prevent such impor-

*Depreciate, or degrade.

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8 OBSERVATIONS CONCERNING THE

tations, and on the contrary promote the exportation of manu
factures to be consumed in foreign countries, may be called (with
respect to the people that make them) generative laws, as by in
creasing subsistence they encourage marriage. Such laws likewise
strengthen a Country doubly, by increasing its own people and
diminishing its neighbours.

17. Some European Nations prudently refuse to consume the
manufactures of East India. They should likewise forbid them to
their colonies; for the gain to the merchant is not to be compar d
with the loss by this means of people to the Nation.

18. Home Luxury in the great, increases the nation s manu
facturers employ d by it, who are many, and only tends to diminish
the Families that indulge in it, who are few. The greater the com
mon fashionable expence of any rank of people, the more cautious
they are of marriage. Therefore luxury should never be suffer d
to become common.

19. The great increase of Offspring in particular families is
not always owing to greater fecundity of Nature, but sometimes
to examples of industry in the Heads, and industrious education;
by which the children are enabled to provide better for themselves,
and their marrying early is encouraged from the prospect of good
subsistence.

20. If there be a sect therefore, in our nation, that regard
Frugality and Industry as religious duties, and educate their chil
dren therein, more than others commonly do, such sect must conse
quently increase more by natural generation, than any other sect
in Britain.

21. The importation of foreigners into a country that has as
many inhabitants as the present employments and provisions for
subsistence will bear, will be in the end no increase of people; unless
the new comers have more industry and frugality than the natives,
and then they will provide more Subsistence, and increase in the
country; but they will gradually eat the natives out. Nor is it

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INCREASE OF MANKIND 9

necessary to bring in foreigners to fill up any occasional vacancy
in a country; for such vacancy (if the Laws are good, 14, 16) will
soon be filled by natural generation. Who can now find the vacan
cy made in Sweden, France or other warlike nations, by the Plague
of heroism forty Years ago; in France by the expulsion of the Protes
tants; in England by the settlement of her Colonies; or in Guinea,
by one hundred years exportation of slaves, that has blacken d
half America? The thinness of inhabitants in Spain is owing to
national pride and idleness, and other causes, rather than to the
expulsion of the Moors, or to the making of new settlements.

22. There is in short, no bound to the prolific nature of plants
or animals, but what is made by their crowding and interfering
with each others means of subsistence. Was the face of the earth
vacant of other plants, it might be gradually sowed and overspread
with one kind only; as, for instance, with Fennel; and were it empty
of other inhabitants, it might in a few Ages be replenish d from one
nation only; as for Instance, with Englishmen. Thus there are
suppos d to be now upwards of One Million English Souls in North
America, (tho tis thought scarce 80,000 have been brought over
sea) and yet perhaps there is not one the fewer in Britain, but rather
many more, on Account of the employment the Colonies afford to
manufacturers at home. This million doubling, suppose but once
in twenty-five years, will in another century be more than the peo
ple of England, and the greatest Number of Englishmen will be on
this side the water. What an accession of Power to the British
empire by the Sea as well as Land! What increase of trade and navi
gation! What numbers of ships and seamen! We have been here
but little more than one hundred years, and yet the force of our
Privateers in the late war, united, was greater, both in men and
guns, than that of the whole British Navy in Queen Elizabeth s time.
How important an affair then to Britain, is the present treaty for
settling the bounds between her Colonies and the French, and how
careful should she be to secure room enough, since on the room de
pends so much the increase of her people?

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10 OBSERVATIONS CONCERNING THE INCREASE OF MANKIND

23. In fine, A nation well regulated is like a Polypus; take
away a limb, its place is soon supply d; cut it in two, and each de
ficient part shall speedily grow out of the part remaining. Thus
if you have room and subsistence enough, as you may by dividing
make ten Polypes out of one, you may of one make ten nations,
equally populous and powerful; or rather, increase a nation ten fold
in numbers and strength.

And since detachments of English horn Britain sent to America,
will have their places at home so soon supply d and increase so large
ly here; why should the Palatine Boors be suffered to swarm into
our settlements, and by herding together establish their languages
and manners to the exclusion of ours? Why should Pennsylvania,
founded by the English, become a colony of Aliens, who will shortly
be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them,
and will never adopt our language or customs, any more than they
can acquire our complexion?

24. Which leads me to add one remark: That the number
of purely white people in the world is proportionably very small.
All Africa is black or tawny. Asia chiefly tawny. America (ex
clusive of the new comers) wholly so. And in Europe, the Span
iards, Italians, French, Russians and Swedes are generally of what
we call a swarthy complexion ; as are the Germans also, the Saxons
only excepted, who with the English make the principal body of
white people on the face of the earth. I could wish their numbers
were increased. And while we are, as I may call it, scouring our
planet, by clearing America of woods, and so making this side of
our globe reflect a brighter light to the eyes of inhabitants in Mars
or Venus, why should we in the sight of superior beings, darken its
people? why increase the sons of Africa, by planting them in Ameri
ca, where we have so fair an opportunity, by excluding all blacks
and tawneys, of increasing the lovely white and red? But perhaps
I am partial to the complexion of my Country, for such kind of
partiality is natural to Mankind.

THE END

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